The Scottish oil industry is at a tipping point and needs urgent state support or else fields that could be drilled in the future will be deemed uneconomic and abandoned prematurely, says Gordon Brown.

In a major speech in Glasgow, to be given on Monday, one of his last before stepping down from parliament after 33 years, Brown will say the fall in worldwide oil prices requires the industry to given a rescue plan, or else severe structural damage be inflicted that weakens the entire Scottish economy.

_________________We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces

I went to the All Energy conference in Melbourne in 2013 and to be honest it was not very good being full of solar panel manufacturers. The one exception was the beyond zero emissions stand.

Having looked at the website for this one it does look better.

As for state support of the oil industry the horse has very well bolted on this one. For the UK to produce a lot of oil at $10 per barrel and have little left when prices inevitably rise when global supplies run short is government negligence of the highest degree._________________G'Day cobber!